The July Garden

July 6, 2009 - The garden is officially in full swing. It's incredible to me that all the vegetables that are currently growing in our garden began their life as a seed in my hand, tenderly placed into a small pot of soil. In just a few short months, the garden went from a bare patch of ground to a huge maze of delicious food.

Joe and I returned last week from several days in California. Before we left we were eating peas from the garden in handfuls, as well as onions, leaf lettuces, some bok choi, and a few heads of broccoli. We arrived home to find the garden bursting with food begging to be eaten. Here's the large view of the garden -

But let's go in and take a closer look -

There are big green tomatoes everywhere, and we should be just a week or two from our first taste-

The zucchini is beginning it's massive production, which we already are having a hard time keeping up with. When will I learn to plant only ONE zucchini plant?

The red cabbage is the perfect splash of color in the midst of all the green -

A nice, healthy patch of green beens - not yet producing, but well on their way -

Some romaine lettuces that will bolt if we don't eat 'em quick!

Kale that is just sooo lovely with it's curly leaves -

Purple basil, which happened to star in a delicious Purple Basil Lemonade that I served at a 4th of July party this weekend -

The few broccoli heads that didn't get eaten yet are beginning to flower - very pretty, but they need to be cut so that the plants will begin to produce off-shoots that we can nibble on throughout the rest of the growing season and even into the fall.

The cucumber plants are producing, meaning Joe and I have now had our first cucumber sandwiches of the season!

And a row of onions beside a row of leaf lettuces - Now you'd think we'd be nothing but thrilled with the status of our garden. Unfortunately, what we also found upon our return was that we apparently have a neighborhood deer that has let itself into our garden for some midnight nibbling. How do we know? The obvious clues are the many deer prints scattered throughout the garden -

But when you take a close look, you'll also find that all of our tomato and pepper plants have been chewed off at about deer head height - The deer also seems to have enjoyed several nibbles in the swiss chard patch, but other than that things look okay. Joe made the garden fence higher with some sticks and string, so hopefully that will keep the deer out from now on. But it was pretty depressing to see all the damage that had been done in our absence. Hopefully everything will recover... and if it doesn't, at least we still have a LOT of other yummy food to eat!